The Financial Crisis and the Free Market Cure: Why Pure Capitalism Is the World Economy’s Only Hope

Did Wall Street cause the mess we are in? Should Washington place stronger regulations on the financial industry? Can we lower unemployment rates by controlling the free market? Answer: no. Not only is free-market capitalism good for the economy, it is our only hope for recovery. As the nation’s longest-serving CEO of one of the top 25 financial institutions, John Allison has had a unique inside view of the events leading up to the financial crisis.

One Click: Jeff Bezos and the Rise of Amazon.com

Amazon’s business model is deceptively simple: make online shopping so easy and convenient that customers won’t think twice. It can almost be summed up by the button on every page: Buy now with one click. Why has Amazon been so successful? Much of it has to do with Jeff Bezos, the CEO and founder, whose business strategy and unique combination of character traits have driven Amazon to the top of the online retail world. Originally a computer nerd rather than a businessman, he had the vision to capitalize on the untapped online marketplace for bookselling....

Book Yourself Solid, 2nd Edition: The Fastest, Easiest, and Most Reliable System for Getting More Clients Than You Can Handle Even if You Hate Marketing and Selling

According to the Small Business Administration, 90% of service businesses will fail within the first five years. They fail not because they don't offer great services and products, but because the owners are extremely uncomfortable with traditional marketing and sales. The result is a frustrated, isolated, and overwhelmed business owner who does not know there is an entirely different, highly successful approach to marketing and sales available—and it's laid out in Book Yourself Solid.

400 Things Cops Know: Street-Smart Lessons From a Veteran Patrolman

400 Things Cops Know shows police work on the inside, from the viewpoint of the regular cop on the beat - a profession that can range from rewarding to bizarre to terrifying, all within the course of an eight-hour shift. Written by veteran police sergeant Adam Plantinga, 400 Things Cops Know brings the listener into life the way cops experience it - a life of danger, frustration, occasional triumph, and plenty of grindingly hard routine work.

Alibaba's World: How a Remarkable Chinese Company Is Changing the Face of Global Business

In September 2014, a Chinese company that most Americans had never heard of held the largest IPO in history - bigger than Google, Facebook, and Twitter combined. Alibaba, now the world's largest ecommerce company, mostly escaped Western notice for over 10 years, while building a customer base larger than Amazon's and handling the bulk of ecommerce transactions in China. How did it happen? And what was it like to be along for such a revolutionary ride?

Acid Test: LSD, Ecstasy, and the Power to Heal

A fascinating, transformative look at the therapeutic powers of psychedelic drugs, particularly in the treatment of PTSD, and the past fifty years of scientific, political, and legal controversy they have ignited, by award-winning journalist Tom Shroder.

God's Bankers: A History of Money and Power at the Vatican

From a master chronicler of legal and financial misconduct, a magnificent investigation nine years in the making, this book traces the political intrigue and inner workings of the Catholic Church. Decidedly not about faith, belief in God, or religious doctrine, this audiobook is about the church's accumulation of wealth and its byzantine entanglements with financial markets across the world.

Charlie Munger: The Complete Investor

Charlie Munger, Berkshire Hathaway's visionary vice chairman and Warren Buffett's indispensable financial partner, has outperformed market indexes again and again, and he believes any investor can do the same. His notion of "elementary, worldly wisdom" - a set of interdisciplinary mental models involving economics, business, psychology, ethics, and management - allows him to keep his emotions out of his investments and avoid the common pitfalls of bad judgment.

Brain Bugs: How the Brain’s Flaws Shape Our Lives

With its trillions of connections, the human brain is more beautiful and complex than anything we could ever build, but it’s far from perfect: our memory is unreliable; we can’t multiply large sums in our heads; advertising manipulates our judgment; we tend to distrust people who are different from us; supernatural beliefs and superstitions are hard to shake; we prefer instant gratification to long-term gain; and what we presume to be rational decisions are often anything but.

HBR's 10 Must Reads on Managing Yourself

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The Entrepreneur's Blueprint to Massive Success: Create an Exceptional Lifestyle While Doing Business on Your Terms

All of us start out with the desire and the potential to live remarkable lives. But along the way something happens.... We start to accept mediocrity. But there is a way to live life on your own terms. And entrepreneur Peter Voogd wants to show you how....

Steal the Show: From Speeches to Job Interviews to Deal-Closing Pitches, How to Guarantee a Standing Ovation for All the Performances in Your Life

Every day there are moments when you must persuade, inform, and motivate others effectively. Each of those moments requires you, in some way, to play a role, to heighten the impact of your words, and to manage your emotions and nerves. Every interaction is a performance, whether you're speaking up in a meeting, pitching a client, or walking into a job interview.

Built to Sell: Creating a Business That Can Thrive Without You

A business parable about how to create a start-up that won't trap you when you want to sell it. According to John Warrillow, the number one mistake entrepreneurs make is to build a business that relies too heavily on them. Thus, when the time comes to sell, buyers aren't confident that the company-even if it's profitable-can stand on its own. To illustrate this, Warrillow introduces us to a fictional small business owner named Alex who is struggling to sell his advertising agency.

The Physics of Wall Street: A Brief History of Predicting the Unpredictable

After the economic meltdown of 2008, Warren Buffett famously warned, "beware of geeks bearing formulas." But as James Weatherall demonstrates, not all geeks are created equal. While many of the mathematicians and software engineers on Wall Street failed when their abstractions turned ugly in practice, a special breed of physicists has a much deeper history of revolutionizing finance.

A pioneer of content marketing, Joe Pulizzi has cracked the code when it comes to the power of content in a world where marketers still hold fast to traditional models that no longer work. In Content Inc., he breaks down the business-startup process into six steps, making it simple for you to visualize, launch, and monetize your own business.

The True Story of the Bilderberg Group

Delving into a world once shrouded in mystery, this investigative report provides a fascinating account of the annual meetings of the world's most powerful people, The Bilderberg Group. Since first meeting in 1954 at the Bilderberg Hotel in the Netherlands, The Bilderberg Group has been comprised of prime ministers, presidents and the wealthiest CEOs of the world, all deliberating the economic and political future of humanity.

Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years and The War Years

Originally published in six volumes, which sold more than one million copies, Carl Sandburg’s Abraham Lincoln was praised as the most noteworthy historical biography of Sandburg’s generation. He later distilled this monumental work into one volume that critics and readers alike consider his greatest work of nonfiction, as well as the most distinguished, authoritative biography of Lincoln ever published.

Growing up in an Illinois prairie town, Sandburg listened to stories of old-timers who had known Lincoln. By the time this single-volume edition was competed, he had spent a lifetime studying, researching, and writing about our 16th president.

The Boom: How Fracking Ignited the American Energy Revolution and Changed the World

Russell Gold, a brilliant and dogged investigative reporter at The Wall Street Journal, has spent more than a decade reporting on one of the biggest stories of our time: the spectacular, world-changing rise of "fracking". Recognized as a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and a recipient of the Gerald Loeb Award for his work, Gold has traveled along the pipelines and into the hubs of this country’s energy infrastructure; he has visited frack sites from Texas to North Dakota; and he has conducted thousands of interviews with engineers and wildcatters, CEOs and roughnecks, environmentalists and politicians.

A First-Rate Madness: Uncovering the Links Between Leadership and Mental Illness

Here, Nassir Ghaemi draws from the careers and personal plights of such notable leaders as Lincoln, Churchill, Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., JFK, and others from the past two centuries to build an argument at once controversial and compelling: the very qualities that mark those with mood disorders—realism, empathy, resilience, and creativity—also make for the best leaders in times of crisis.

Innovation Secrets of Steve Jobs

In The Innovation Secrets of Steve Jobs, best-selling author Carmine Gallo reveals the qualities that make the Apple co-founder the most innovative leader in business today. Each principle is backed with research, quotes, and first-person interviews with experts and business leaders, as well as specific ideas for applying those principles to every business, large or small.

Wealth, Poverty, and Politics: An International Perspective

In Wealth, Poverty, and Politics, Thomas Sowell, one of the foremost conservative public intellectuals in the country, argues that political and ideological struggles have led to dangerous confusion about income inequality in America. Pundits and politically motivated economists trumpet ambiguous statistics and sensational theories while ignoring the true determinant of income inequality: the production of wealth.

Profit First: A Simple System to Transform Any Business from a Cash-Eating Monster to a Money-Making Machine

In Profit First, Mike Michalowicz, author of The Pumpkin Plan and The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur, explains why the GAAP accounting method is contrary to human nature, trapping entrepreneurs in the panic-driven cycle of operating check-to-check and reveals why this new method is the easiest and smartest way to ensure your business becomes wildly (and permanently) profitable from your very next deposit forward.

Dynasty: The Rise and Fall of the House of Caesar

Author and historian Tom Holland returns to his roots in Roman history and the audience he cultivated with Rubicon - his masterful, witty, brilliantly researched popular history of the fall of the Roman republic - with Dynasty, a luridly fascinating history of the reign of the first five Roman emperors.

I'm Feeling Lucky: The Confessions of Google Employee Number 59

Comparing Google to an ordinary business is like comparing a rocket to an Edsel. No academic analysis or bystanders account can capture it. Now Doug Edwards, Employee Number 59, offers the first inside view of Google, giving readers a chance to fully experience the bizarre mix of camaraderie and competition at this phenomenal company. I'm Feeling Lucky captures for the first time the unique, self-invented, yet profoundly important culture of the world's most transformative corporation.

Publisher's Summary

Did you lose money in the stock market in the last financial crisis of late 2008?

Has your home lost value?

Are you "underwater" in your mortgage or concerned about selling?

Do your dollars buy less than they used to at the grocery store and the gas pump?

Have you lost your job or know someone who did?

Are you worried about the safety of your money and investments?

Don't get fooled again! While the "experts" want us to believe that all is well (or will be soon), nothing could be further from the truth. The worldwide financial crisis of 2008 and 2009 was just a sneak preview of what is to come. For those who act quickly and correctly, there is still time to protect yourself, your family, and your business in the next global money meltdown. The Wall Street Journal business best seller Aftershock can help you:

Protect and grow your assets before, during, and after the next global financial crisis

What the Critics Say

"Their scenario is dark, and their strategies bold and unconventional. But after being on target the last time they went against the grain, the Wiedemers merit being heard out." (The Associated Press)

"Surrounded as we are by growing talk of recovery and news about 'green shoots,' it's still refreshing to consider the different perspective that Wiedemer, Wiedemer, and Spitzer offer here." (Robert J. Hughes, SmartMoney)

This review is not about whether I personally agree or disagree with the statements in the book.

The authors of this book do a great job of making a highly convincing and insightful case for their viewpoint on the future of our global economy. It is a well-written, highly informative and eye-opening explanation of the authors' expectations, based on their macroeconomic analyses.

The overall experience of listening to this audiobook was enjoyable. The narrator was easy to listen to, and his cadence was just right to get the point across, as he read with a consistent, persuasive tone.

The thing that truly sours the book, in my opinion, is that it contains advertisements for their investment and retirement planning services. The end of the second and sixth chapters are blatant advertisements for their services, urging readers to call in or visit their website. Furthermore, the book, in a variety of places, urges its readers to visit their website, which is oriented toward getting people to pay for their services.

The basic premise of the book is that the American and global economies have largely been the creation of a series of government induced "bubbles", which, due to their unsustainability, are destined to pop, leading to an economic collapse.

Once that very valid point has been made, the authors careen off into lala-land.

For starters, the reader is forced over and over again, to listen to the authors:

A. Tell them how they are sage prophets of our economic future, and how right they were in a previous book which, you probably haven't bought yet, but should so you can see how brilliant they are.

B. Rant about tenured economics professors, and how they are going to show them all up by eventually unveiling their brilliant theory of "economic evolution" in later books, newsletters, and expensive investor services. Buy them so you won't be consumed by the zombie hords!

There are so many problems with this book, its hard to know where to start. I won't cover them all here, but offer a few choice examples.

1. "Numerical models will revolutionize economics and save the world."

Sorry guys. I spent 20 years of my career running numerical models. These are TOOLS not crystal balls. The authors mistakenly claim that by calibrating one of their models to past known events, they can accurately predict the future. THIS IS FALSE. Calibration is only the FIRST step in producing a reliable model. VALIDATION is where the rubber really meets the road. That is, after calibrating your model, you challenge it by running predictive simulations into the future, and then observe (in the future) whether your model was right. Do that a half dozen or more times (tweaking the parameters and metrics along the way) and you may have something that is half-way decent at prediction under a given set of economic (or other scientific) boundary conditions.

If economists want to be less "voodoo" and more "empirical", here's a bit of friendly advice: learn from other scientific disciplines that have been doing this type of thing a lot longer than you have!

2. "When the crash comes, everything will be really, really expensive - except of course FOOD, and we will all continue to become even fatter and lazier."

Uh, really? Do I even need to cover this? Why in the world would food be "cheap" when the costs of energy, equipment, seed, fertilizers, and chemicals will skyrocket?

3. "Marx was wrong, but hey, he deserves a lot of credit for "advancing" economic theory (an A for effort!). He saw that economies "evolve" and that humans can be perfected, he just based his theory on an outdated economic model, other than that, he was teh awesome!"

Yeah, really? Human beings are flawed. Biological evolution is one thing. Human character evolution is something else entirely. Humans have repeated the same cycles of behavior over and over again for millennia. Sorry guys, I don't think we are going to evolve into gods any time soon. And that hat tip to Karl the Killer, didn't up your currency in my book. He was a self-hating Jew who was pissed off at a world he didn't think was fair to him. Kinda like someone else we know...

4. "We won't tell you anything really useful in this book, because we want to sucker you into buying the next (where we won't tell you anything either). But we just want to drop a tantalizing little hint: "targeted stimulus"!!"

Awesome. Now the hat tips to Marx and Keynes make sense. You think these douche nozzles were on the right track, but you're gonna fix it with a few tweaks, eh? (probably with one of those fancy numerical models that haven't been validated, no doubt).

5. "Wegner's theory of Continental Drift was revolutionary. He was scoffed at just like untenured geniuses like us. But Wegner was right, so are we, we are all so smart. Believe everything we say. Buy our crud and make us rich."

Uh, OK, so this is not strictly an economic point of contention, but one of sloppiness. Wegner FYI, was WRONG. The continents do not "drift" - they do not float across the oceans. Wegner got lucky about the coasts looking like they fit together. Wegner was totally wrong about the drivers of continental movement; didn't understand what true continental margins were; didn't get that the oceans themselves are "plates" in and of themselves; and missed the significance of mountain building, earthquakes, and other "tectonic" theory, and how those relate to continental movement, which is far, far from random drift. Like the old saying goes - even a broken clock is right twice a day. So it is for astronomers like Wegner. (Astronomers have historically shown they understand less about planetary geology than your average bus driver)

In the end, the authors start with a kernel of believable truth that most average people already "get" - i.e. that our economy is ready to go "pop". Then use that as a launch pad for selling a bunch of half-a$$ed crud that they will publish in the future. Probably dribs and drabs of nothingness, all the while promising "if you just buy our newsletter, we'll give you the real scoop".

Don't get me wrong; I don't have a lot of love for academic tenured economists either. But using your obvious grudge against these people is not the basis for making the world a better place (see Marx above).

While the concepts in this book are interesting, and thought provoking, the authors don't go very deeply into the technical details. Yet in spite of this lack of detail and explanation, the authors recommend that you sell everything of value that you own (except your car as you will need that to get to work to make more money, to give to their investment firm) and turn the money over to their investment company. That is what is scary. Be wary of anyone who tells you to sell everything you own, give the money to them because paradise awaits you in the afterlife, or "aftershock" in this case. How many times will people continue to fall for that one. At best, these people are well meaning, but misguided and arrogant. At worst, the next Bernie Madoff. "A fool and his money are soon parted." There's a reason that's a cliché. If these people could accurately predict the market which is driven by many more complex factors then anyone can calculate at this time, they wouldn't need to sell their financial services and books. Think about it. They're not your friends. They don't know you and could care less about you. They care about making money and feeding their egos. While I think the book brings up many important things to consider and has opened my eyes, I wouldn't give a penny of my money to their investment firm as I think these guys are the next Bernie Madoff. I have a 50/50 chance of being right. If I am, then I can write one of these "I told you so books." You heard it here first.

The advice to sell all your real estate, sell your business, or even change professions is very dangerous. Between reminding you they were right in 2006 every few minutes and use of the words bursting bubble, the book could be shortened to 30 mins of rehashing previous problems and guessing at the future. These guys are so full of themselves its not even funny. Listen with extreme caution. The raspy narrator doesn't help either.

To summarize-they were right about the first crash-poor economic principles caused the first crash-they were right about the poor economic principles causing the first crash-buy gold, change professions, sell your houses, sell your business-they were right so uproot your life before its to late-everyone else is wrong-they were right that everyone else is wrong

This was the worst audiobook I have ever read. The arrogance of the authors is astounding. There arrogance is only surpassed by their insecurity. They spend the entire first two chapters trying to convince the reader why you should believe what they are saying. Their answer - because they were the only ones in the world who had the forsight to see the housing bubble and they were right in their last book so they must be right now. Everyone I knew thought that we were in a housing bubble! When they are not trying to convince you how smart they are they are trying to sell you on their services. I lost count of the number of times they mentioned their website or phone number and urged the reader to contact them. Do not waste your money or credits on this book.

Investors who passively manage their money could see their entire portfolio evaporate into money heaven. This book describes the causes and effects of a major economic collapse. It also describes several methods for protecting investments; moving money into gold, bonds, foreign currencies, and bear funds. It also gives economic indicators to watch for trouble: inflation rate and interest rate.

There is some pretty deep economics in this book but the author explains it in terms that non-economists can understand. I would've given the book a 5 star if it wasn't for the bragging and self-plugging that is found throughout the book.

Although the case of economic collapse seems rather obvious for anyone who follows anything outside the main stream media, I'd question a few points. The author realizes that CPI numbers are fixed, that the central banks buy the debt, that money printing can not fix the economy and that we are in a multi bubble economy. So far so good. However his thesis is also that the inflation will be combated with higher interest rates, as gvts will be unable to borrow. I doubt this is still the case. The central banks can just put a floor bid on bonds and a ceiling on interest rates. They can keep lying on inflation.

He also assumes that all high flying economists who wrecked big banks, are irrational and took the wrong decisions. I don't think they did. They only sold crappy mortgages fully aware that they had the persons in their pocket that would bail them out and dump their problems on the tax payers. They are not illogical, just evil.

I also do not share his pessimism over asia. All production has moved there, we in the west just import stuff from there and have forgotten how to make it. When the bubbles have fully popped, they still have production capacity and knowledge.

Other than that a reasonable book, expecting high inflation because of money printing and a collapse of just about everything else as it is financed with debt, which will suffer high interest rates. It does however not strike the root of the problem:the cause of the problems is not that bubbles are popping. The bubbles are there for a reason. The root of the problems is the approval of the initiation of force by the gvt elites. Their power is our undoing, it will be further corrupted and used against us.

Sometimes the commercials are a bit annoying, he could have made it free with the adds in.

This is a clear and well articulated discussion based upon the undeniable macro-economic evidence that we see every day. The conservative leanings of the authors are generally well disguised but occasionally evident.

The data are good and easy to understand, but the book is annoyingly repetitive. It could be distilled 50% without losing any factual content or conclusions. Most offensive are the authors' self-serving self-promotion throughout the audio-book. Three- to five-minute commercials abound. I've never sat through an audiobook so laden with ads for the authors' consulting services. Without the ads, I would have rated the content at least a point higher in all categories. Unfortunately, the ads are a significant value-subtract.

If you don't mind hearing the authors' cynical sales pitches, there's a lot of good data. But if listening to the authors pitch their services isn't for you, or if you don't need the same facts repeated ad-nauseum, try the print version.

These guys predicted the bursting of the last housing bubble while most people were blissfully unaware of the horrors ahead and continued to spend like the good times would never end. This book is a must read for anyone who genuinely cares about the years ahead. Alternatively you could continue to believe the intricate web of misinformation spun by the political leaders worldwide.

2 of 2 people found this review helpful

Trevaunance

1/30/12

Overall

"so boring"

The predictions in this book may well come to fruition but the book is padded out to the extreme which makes it incredibly boring. After reading “Fools Gold” which was excellent this was very disappointing.

0 of 0 people found this review helpful

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